Back Under The Stairs - Book 2 in The Bandworld Series (6 page)

The old man sighed as memories, like waking
dreams, continued to flood his mind.

He had been so clever!

Knowing that Melcor, that blundering fool,
would be away on other business, Pfnaravin had journeyed to Hero
Castle. There, overawing Melcor's functionary, followed by
Pfnaravin's apprentice, he had ascended to the tower room.

Concealed in the circular stone chamber, safe
from the prying eyes of the absent Melcor, he had taken the
hallowed book from his pack. Opened it. Found the passage he
sought: combined the green crystal-force with the book's chanted
spell to shake the very earth!

Triumphantly, taking the path the Hero had
blazed in the long ago, Pfnaravin's hair bristling, he had passed
... through ... to this other land.

But ... arriving without his Mage-disk.

Where was Pfnaravin's crystal now!? Where was
the sacred book of the Crystal-Mage of Malachite!?

Left behind.

Both left behind in Hero Castle in the band
of Stil-de-grain.

Now lying against the front wall of the house
-- near to the spot of his Wizardly arrival -- he thought of the
many infamies he had suffered here, first to have to bend his mind
and mouth and tongue to the rude speech of these others so he might
order them about.

Order them about? Sadly, he'd discovered
that, without Magus power, he could not control them in the
least.

In the end, he bore these travesties well;
had learned to turn a smiling face to those who would revile him;
acquired the trade of a common builder so that he might eat!

All this he pondered as his breath returned,
as the sky clouds thickened, the night sky growling like a rabid
beast.

Resting, husbanding his fitful glow of life,
he thought on the first days of his entrance to this world.
Remembered the stone marker he had set ... here ... to guide him to
this place where he must be to ride the magic back to
Stil-de-grain.

Remembered how, later, he had built this
house around the place that was the Hero's ... bridge ... between
the worlds.

This house where, to his shame, he had grown
... old.

It was also here in his self-built house of
stone that others had come when he was old and ill, to take him to
the house of beds where the old of this world went to die.

It was then that he'd known despair! Despair
because he was dying like the rest. He, Pfnaravin, Crystal-Mage of
Malachite!

Dying. With no crystal to be found in this
maddening world where people rode over the earth and through the
sky in dangerous, metal monsters of their own creation. No crystal
with which to build the transformation fluid that would take him
... home.

Recently, a man had come to the house of the
beds of death, the man telling them of the terrifying flashes that
rent the windy, rain-soaked sky. (Yes. Long ago, Pfnaravin had
learned the nomenclature for the nameless terrors of the sky: Sun.
Moon. Stars. Wind. Lightning.

He had learned the words. But did not know
the ... substance ... of these frightening ... entities.

More to the point, he had not realized that
lightning was what was meant in the legend of the Hero, folklore
saying that the Hero, "blinded by sky" rode home to
Stil-de-grain.

Able to draw, again, a surplus of breath, the
old man chanted to himself the rhyme of the Hero's travels:

The Hero away

In Stil-de-grain day

The earth shakes him free.

Blinded by sky

In tower high

Back, back came he.

Pfnaravin had pondered that rhyme (said so
casually by every child in every band), to finally puzzle out the
hidden meaning to the line: "The earth shakes him free."

The earth shakes him free! Only the
Crystal-Mage of Malachite had penetrated to the meaning of that
line! And he had been right! With crystal-power and with spells, he
had made that "earth shake" under Hero Castle, the result to build
the force of transformation fluid in that curving, tower room. The
force that had vaulted him to this other world.

To be marooned without his crystal! A
castaway because he could not decipher the second tristich! The
third line of which must contain the essence of the Hero's vault
from here to home again!

Long, long, had he thought that if he could
divine the second strophe ....... But he could not.

He had learned one thing and one thing only.
That the Hero had used other means than crystal-magic to return.
For while there were things called crystals in this world -- even
great spheroids that the pretend prophets of this land called
crystal balls -- none could be stroked to build the flow of
transformation fluid.

"Blinded by sky?" Clearly, that line was the
key to the understanding of the final stave.

How he had despaired when the man and woman
from the government had come and taken him away. Too old. Too sick
to manage his own life.

There, to perish with the rest. Or so he'd
thought ... until that slavey came to tell them of the
lightning.

Lightning. The blinding, awesome streaks of
white that tore into the wild blackness of a storming sky!

The man had talked of this two weeks ago --
as this world counted seven up-lights as a week. Talked of its
power. Talked of ... static ... which, pitifully, Pfnaravin himself
had discovered -- but in such small quantities it was mockery even
to consider it as transformation fluid.

Lightning.

Static.

Transformation fluid.

Could they all be ... one!? And if so, could
"blinded by sky" in the second stanza of the Hero poem be a
reference to lightning?

Pfnaravin had made sure by asking questions.
About static; about lightning, no one in this place knowing the
term: transformation fluid.

It was when the lightning-man had gone that
Pfnaravin -- with renewed hope -- planned his own escape.

Escape!

But in such a way he would not become a
hunted beast.

Had executed his plan the night his "room
mate," Laslow-Jacobs died, Pfnaravin dragging down the dead man,
dragging him over and up into Pfnaravin's bed, Pfnaravin climbing
into Laslow-Jacobs' bed.

No one would know because they looked the
same -- wrinkled, with gray hair -- like all old men.

After the new down-light nurse had pronounced
"Van Robin" dead, Pfnaravin had put himself into a Mage-trance so
that he lay without apparent heartbeat. Was also found to have
"expired."

And when the large machine-that-screamed came
to take away two bodies? What would they think when there was only
one left -- Van Robin? What had happened to the Laslow-Jacobs'
body?

In that way, Pfnaravin knew, with two bodies,
he had made a great confusion.

Escaping with a blanket when the machine
stopped along its way -- Pfnaravin was now huddling under it,
knowing that no one would hunt for "Van Robin" when it was the
other dead man who had "walked away."

And Pfnaravin would also have died except for
keeping the second key. The second key to the door of this, his
house.

When first he'd dragged himself down the
confusing streets -- moving by night -- finding his house at last,
he'd tried to live in the woods surrounding it, digging out, as
best he could, a depression under a fallen tree.

At first, during warm days, he had watched
the man who was now living in the house. Watched him come and go.
Come and go in his machine. Until Pfnaravin had known when the man
would be away.

After that, using the second key, Pfnaravin
had slipped into the house to warm himself during the morning
hours. And to nibble at some food. A bite. A piece of bread. A sip
of milk. So that the loss would not be discovered.

Inside, he had also made a puzzling
discovery. That the man had nailed shut the stairs-door that led to
the transformation point. (A slight problem in this horrid land of
problems.)

From the woods edge, Pfnaravin had watched,
first without understanding, then with amazement, a man who came to
put a ... something ... on the house top. A thing that, in a
blinding flash of inspiration, Pfnaravin understood to be what that
teaching slavey had called a lightning rod. Incredible! That such a
devise should be put up at this time, giving Pfnaravin his first,
real hope!

Now was the time. If the man inside had gone
to sleep. If the gathering storm produced the proper flow of
transformation fluid.

Already, Pfnaravin had attacked the copper
wire by the bottom of the house. Had used heavy stones to pound and
to wear away the metal above the iron stake driven in the
ground.

If the man at the house of the beds of death
had told the truth, the lightning rod, with the wire not ...
grounded ... would, itself, call down the lightning.

By the damp feel of the air. By the look of
the black and getting blacker sky, it would be soon.

Pfnaravin, old, dying, must be ready.

Rested, warm enough to stagger to his feet,
still clutching the blanket around him, Pfnaravin shuffled the
three steps to the door. Shaking, drew out the key; groped it into
the lock hole. Twisted slowly so there would be no metal noise.

And was inside! To blinding darkness and to
... warmth. Blessed warmth!

Pfnaravin leaned against the entrance wall to
catch his breath.

Warm air having magic of its own, he found
that he could walk.

Knowing the position of the chairs and tables
by this time, he tottered forward, feeling his way around this and
that, headed for the cooking slavey room -- in this world, named:
kitchen.

To get a heavy knife from what was called a
pull out drawer.

Knife in hand, stooped over, his breath
ragged in his withered throat, Pfnaravin staggered to the front
hall.

Discarding his hampering blanket, he sagged
to his bony knees beside the stairs, almost crying out at the
sudden bending of his stiffened joints.

Waiting while the agony subsided, he crawled
forward, knife in hand.

Fumbling, he forced the knifepoint into the
slanted door crack.

Using both hands, careful not to cut himself
on the blade edge, Pfnaravin pried back on the handle of the
knife.

A creak.

A nail loosening.

He pried again.

Another creak.

Again.

Creak.

A fourth pull, this time with a sudden
grating.

Too loud!

The noise caused the sweat of fear to ooze
down the furrows of his forehead.

Ignoring all else, there in the house's dark,
Pfnaravin listened. .... Heard nothing up the stairs.

Again, rest.

Another pull-back on the knife blade handle
and the door gave enough so that he could wedge the talons of his
hands inside the crack.

Outside, the storm was coming at the pace of
this world's violent wind.

He must hurry.

Again, he pulled back with all his
weight.

A grate! Coming in a wind-lull!

Surely, even a soundly sleeping man could
hear that noise.

No matter!

This must be the time, the storm clawing at
the house; panting wet screams like grotesque creatures howling in
the stripped-of-magic night!

Yes! As he had hoped, it was upon him now!
The tingle-feel of crystal-power! ...... Not crystal-power, but
another form of transformation fluid! What he had come to know in
agonizingly small ways as static. In what the man had said was
lightning, one-half of the lightning settling on the house, calling
down ... the bolt.

Gaining new strength as the transformation
fluid reached his body, kneeling in the hall before the slanted
door, the knife discarded, using both hands, inserting all his
fingers, Pfnaravin pulled back on the partially opened door.

Creak -- bang! The door was loose at
last!

Noise no longer mattered!

Nothing mattered as the transformation fluid
was full upon him. Building!

There was another sound!

With shock, Pfnaravin heard ... footsteps. On
the stairs above.

Pfnaravin's ash-gray hair rising, struggling
up on hands and knees, he backed into the transformation-tunnel
under the stairs.

More steps! Above! Coming down!

Turning up his head, Pfnaravin saw the ...
man. The man coming down the stairs!

It was in that fearful instant that the man
... the stairs ... the house ... the whole of this hateful, foreign
world ... winked out!

John wakened with a start. Why? Was it the
dream he'd been having?

Vaguely, he remembered
dreaming that he was under the multi-colored sky of the other
world. On the boat. On the
Roamer
, John just another sailor
who, periodically, must row the boat from the rim of one huge, but
tranquil cyclone in the sea to the next, counter-rotating
spiral.

Beside him in the dream, leaning on the deck
rail, was Captain Coluth. Large, big-boned, gentle -- the only
person in the other world John could trust to be both competent and
sensible, John asking Platinia to take John's crystal to the
captain.

Had Platinia done as John asked? Taken the
crystal to Coluth, Coluth presumably still tending the boy-king at
the Stil-de-grain capital on Xanthin Island?

Platinia had always done what John asked
before. But then, she seemed to be awestruck in John's
presence.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say she
was terrified of John's crystal and of the power that "gem"
contained. John remembered she had shied away from the disk even
before John became "drunk" with its power; long before John had
"manhandled" her with his crystal-strengthened mind on the night
before his return to this world.

As sleepy as John was, a wave of regret
washed over him at the thought of bending little Platinia to his
will. Of forcing her to reveal her petty secrets.